Social

Top Posts & Pages

Where I Come From: My Religious Journey, Part 3

For part 1, see https://seekeroftruthweb.wordpress.com/2016/05/20/where-i-come-from-my-religious-journey-part-1/
And part 2: https://seekeroftruthweb.wordpress.com/2016/05/22/where-i-come-from-my-religious-journey-part-2/
I mentioned at the end of my last post of a storm coming. Well it arrived when my friends and I got recruited to work for a guy at church at a very low pay rate. We were told it’s God’s Will(TM) for us to accept this job. As for me, I was told it’s the Kingdom of God[TM] and because it’s a kingdom I don’t get to choose. I was also told that if I didn’t accept this job my marriage and ministry would be postponed, with a “Thus saith the Lord.” The boss yelled at us, preached at us. I won’t get into the details. At the same time a book circulated in which the author claimed God paralyzed him due to his mouthing off to an authority figure who was being a jerk. The message I got was we had to just take all we were going through lying down, or God would be ticked at us. I didn’t want to talk to my friends, due to fear that it would be Korah(Num. 16, he got swallowed by the earth for rebelling against Moses). For the first time in nearly four years I began to question God’s existence. I began to see the god presented to me as a jerk, paralyzing people for petty things that aren’t even wrong while allowing child molesters and genocidaires to prey on children for years; and torturing you for all eternity in a place that makes Auschwitz seem like an amusement park after you die. I got to the point I was thinking I’d rather be an atheist than believe in the god being presented to me and I didn’t care if whose feelings were hurt(as changing religious views is a human right! This still gives me a bad taste for political correctness, but that’s another post.)
In addition the church started turning insular, especially after Obama’s election. We were shown a number of videos on the Illuminati, and how they’re trying to destroy the economy, destroy America, destroy [Real True] Christianity [TM], and all this is leading to the Great Deception[TM], the Great Apostasy[TM], and the Antichrist. There was one on how the interfaith movement is just an attempt by the Illuminati to destroy Christianity, that [Real True] Christians [TM] are singled out for attack, and set up a one-world religion. This caused cognitive dissonance, as I’m not an Illuminist and I support interfaith dialogue. People support interfaith due to the fact that fanatics who believe their way is the only way kill in the name of God those who disagree with them. As it was referred to as “The Left-Wing Shadow Government” I thought it just a way to demonize those who disagree with us; that this is just an “us vs them” mentality. I also saw a bit of xenophobia in this, in that just being interested in other countries would label you an Illuminist. All these things I saw are things I really don’t like! I even asked the leadership for permission to go abroad; but was told, “Not yet; not until you get in the Glory.” This became very frustrating.
I feared that I’d be told, “The Lord says that Sister So-and-so is your wife” but I wouldn’t like Sister So-and-so, and thus be forced to marry her. I really didn’t (and still don’t) want to marry anyone I grew up with, as I knew I’d have to Drink the Kool-Aid and probably give up my dream of living abroad (as some people said they don’t want their son-in-law to take their daughter away from the man of God). Later I grew fearful that I’d never marry(as I mentioned in another post, we had purity culture and dating was verboten. Parental approval was strongly pushed, and my mom didn’t think I was mature enough.) Thus I thought marriage was effectively banned. We were also told that we should be willing to never marry if God says so. Concerning going abroad people asked me what if God said to remain in this bubble the rest of my life. People got offended when I said I’d still go abroad (something that’s a human right — one reason I support the right to offend; but that’s another post). I was frustrated over being stuck in a job making hardly anything, unable to go anywhere, having no prospects for marriage, all because leaders said it’s God’s Will (TM). This definitely helped contribute to my religious crisis, as it seemed God just made arbitrary rules that were impossible to follow and was going to torture us for not keeping them, but Jesus convinced Him into beating Him instead.
However there were a few things I did to move forward. Since we traveled a half hour to an hour to reach the job, I listened to language learning podcasts in the meantime. (However I couldn’t stick to one language.) I also bought books on subjects of interest from Barnes and Noble.
Well, I’m going to end this post here. I apologize this is such a downer, and I promise the next post will have more positive content!(Seriously, this period was one of my roughest.)